Guest guest Posted January 16, 2011 Report Share Posted January 16, 2011 So totally true! I began to notice the difference in kids when I was teaching high school in the eighties and nineties. Something was already amiss then.Kids are NOT healthy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 16, 2011 Report Share Posted January 16, 2011 Haven, I'm white and when I was teaching in Pittsburgh in the early 90s, my students were black. The little boys didn't have eye contact and they were bouncing off the walls. As for the eye contact, an older teacher said " oh that's a cultural thing. " I keep thinking about how deep this whole thing runs. How many little boys now men, are in prison because they weren't able to focus and attend at school? > > So totally true! I began to notice the difference in kids when I was > teaching high school in the eighties and nineties. Something was already > amiss then. > > Kids are NOT healthy. > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 17, 2011 Report Share Posted January 17, 2011 ,Saying it was a cultural thing was such a stupid thing to say!i grew up going to integrated private schools in the sixties/seventies. Maybe it had to do with going to private, but I don't thinks so. When i was a student there, we knew how to focus, be quiet, pay attention, and get the work done. i went back to teach there, and good lord, these kids could not keep their mouths shut nor focus for a minute. They were a little better than when I went over to teach at the public. I had switched to that public school my senior year after a bad bout of salmonella poisoning kept me out of school for twelve weeks! I just enrolled in the public school to finish. This was inner city, and there were a lot more noticeable signs. This one boy --none of the teachers could deal with him. I look back now and know he had either a form of autism or very severe ADHD. I really tried to work with him. His mom was so grateful. I tried best I could. A few years later I read in the paper that he had been thrown in jail and someone killed him while in the jail! That broke my heart! He was a good kid but he just couldn't keep still and he could not focus on anything for long. He was white. We had all races at this school, about 2500 students. I saw issues with all the kids no matter what race. I dreaded any class that came in after lunch. All were hopped up on government surplus starchy lunches, soda, and candy! It was funny that whoever had them first thing in the mroning loved them, but woe to whoever got a class right after lunch! The saddest part is that while we would start out with about 1300 freshmen, we were lucky if 400 were left by senior year. That is how many kids were dropping out or getting into trouble.They were good kids. They were mostly sweet, but I just noticed a lot of what we now call ADD and ADHD. I think the prisons are full of these kids. I have often wondered and tried t investigate: there was an incidence at my son's old school back when he was three. it was the day we were scheduled to go in for our first ARD. They called and said the school was in lock down. A former student who I think had been expelled for behavior went into the high school and started splashing people with gasoline! The principal jumped him and subdued him, and I'm sure he is still in jail today. After having seen the state of special education in Texas rural schools, i thought about him and wondered could he have just been a kid who was on the spectrum and received no interventions and no help?A lot of ASD kids just wind up in alternative school. That is how these rural schools deal with the behavioral issues in autism. I see parents every day who don't do any interventions, and the times I've tried to suggest them they say they are too hard, so they do nothing. I feel so badly for these kids! It has been in the news before. Staynor's brother is the one who kidnapped and killed a woman, her daughter and the daughter's friend in California several years ago. they reported he had autism, but the parents never addressed it as had been kidnapped and they had put all their energies into finding him. I do believe there is danger in unaddressed autism due to the social issues and behavioral issues -- if left unaddressed, it can wind up a very sad situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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